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Media Help Hillary Oddly Hype Slick Willie as a 'Secret Weapon'
By Tim Graham | December 26, 2015 | 11:02 PM EST

One of the more tiresome cliches of political coverage is the “secret weapon.” Twenty years ago, Hillary Clinton was promoted as her husband’s “secret weapon.” Now it’s the reverse. Peter Nicholas of  The Wall Street Journal wrote a story aping the Clinton spin, headlined “Hillary Clinton’s ‘Secret Weapon’ Could Escalate Campaign Rhetoric.”

Bill has been described by reporters as a secret weapon and a not-so-secret weapon, as if no one knows what he brings. Eight years ago, Hillary's mom was the "secret weapon." Surely, daughter Chelsea has also been the secret weapon. Nicholas seems to think Slick Willie is a weapon first and foremost against Trump....and less so against Sanders. 

Matt Flegenheimer Is Not Amused: NY Times Reporter Rolls Eyes at Jeb’s Dry Wit
By Clay Waters | December 26, 2015 | 7:25 PM EST

In Saturday’s New York Times, reporter Matt Flegenheimer took a hostile tone in an ostensibly light-hearted story about Jeb Bush’s surprising reserves of humor in Saturday’s “Bush Camp Suggests (Very) Secret Weapon: Its Candidate Is Funny.” Turns out Jeb! has a decent line in dry wit, but the Times resolutely refused to be amused by the struggling Republican candidate: “Who says @JebBush doesn’t have a sense of humor!” his top adviser, Sally Bradshaw, asked on Twitter....The list is long: allies, foes, former aides."

A Lump of Coal from Steve Hayes Who Puts Media at Top of His ‘Naughty List’
By Brent Baker | December 26, 2015 | 12:56 PM EST

“At the very top of my naughty list” for the year, the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes announced on the Christmas Day edition of FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier, are “the mainstream media.” Hayes cited how “the coverage of President Obama and Hillary Clinton in particular this past year has been abysmal,” pointing to the failure to correct Obama’s “unequivocally wrong” assertions about Guantanamo and how, re Benghazi, “the media basically celebrated the fact she had won a victory over those mean and evil Republicans.”

Time's Joe Klein Gives 'Teddy Awards' to Obama and Jeb for 'Continued Moderation'
By Tim Graham | December 26, 2015 | 11:20 AM EST

Time columnist Joe Klein conceives of himself as outside the “blinkered orthodoxy” of the political parties, but for many years he’s been a blinkered adorer of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, touting them both as centrists despite the governing realities. In handing out his “Teddy” (for Roosevelt) awards for "doers, diplomats, and leaders who ignored our worst instincts," the trend continued. He deeply bowed to Obama for making a deal with Iran, and then proclaimed his alleged moderation:

Part of a Real AP Headline: 'Emissions Need To Drop Below Zero'
By Tom Blumer | December 26, 2015 | 10:56 AM EST

The detachment from reality of those who actually believe that the recent international climate agreement in Paris is anything but a dangerous and potentially expensive charade has become especially irritating.

The goals identified in Paris are obviously unachievable, and have no direct tie-in to reducing "global warming." Convincing evidence of the link between carbon dioxide generation and allegedly rising global temperatures doesn't exist. In light of this reality, someone really needs to ask the AP's Karl Ritter how much Kool-Aid he had to drink before he informed readers on Thursday morning that the "PARIS CLIMATE GOALS MEAN EMISSIONS NEED TO DROP BELOW ZERO" — and then attempted to take that goal seriously.

Year End Awards: The Ruining the Revolution Award
By Rich Noyes | December 26, 2015 | 9:59 AM EST

Since Monday, NewsBusters has been presenting each category from the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “Ruining the Revolution Award,” for journalists wailing about how awful it will be for communist Cuba to become more like the capitalist U.S. Winning this award, Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith who fretted that if American businesses such as Taco Bell or Lowe’s moved to Cuba, it could “ruin the place.”

Bozell & Graham Column: Cultural Winners and Losers of 2015
By Brent Bozell and Tim Graham | December 26, 2015 | 8:12 AM EST

ABC News devoted a fluffy two-hour special to the year in review, studying the news and pop culture. They had a “Dishonor Roll” segment where they mocked the adultery of Josh Duggar and the scandal of the adultery website Ashley Madison when its client list leaked. They scorned the dentist that shot “Cecil the Lion,” white activist Rachel Dolezal pretending to be black, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kim Richards getting arrested for shoplifting, and pop singer Ariana Grande caught on video licking donuts.

But nowhere in this summary were the grisly tapes exposing Planned Parenthood for its effort to profit from selling the organs of babies it killed in its abortion clinics.

Pundit: Obama Has Avoided ‘Second-Term Curse’; GOP Has Helped Him By ‘Transparently Politicizing’ Their Investigations
By Tom Johnson | December 26, 2015 | 12:12 AM EST

Bill Scher runs a website called Liberal Oasis, which makes it unsurprising that his Monday RealClearPolitics column celebrated President Obama’s avoidance (so far) of the “second-term curse” that supposedly afflicted George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and some of their predecessors in the White House.

Scher exults that Obama “has not been knocked off course by scandal” and lauds him for “master[ing] the art of scandal management, while his Republican opponents lost credibility by transparently politicizing every investigation…Instead of following the facts before drawing conclusions, [Republicans] proclaim the worst—and then fail to prove their allegations. That’s why the pursuits of wrongdoing in Fast and Furious, Solyndra, the IRS audits and Benghazi have all fizzled.”

AP Ignores Minnesota Terror Suspect's Involvement With Airport De-Icing
By Tom Blumer | December 25, 2015 | 11:58 PM EST

In a year-end interview with National Public Radio, President Barack Obama largely blamed "a saturation of news" coming from a media which "is pursuing ratings" for growing concerns in America over the ability of ISIS and other terrorists to conduct attacks on U.S. soil, and indicated that "it's up to the media to make a determination about how they want to cover things."

It's reasonable to believe that Obama was telling the press corps, which already works furiously to prop him up, that they need to cut back on their reporting of domestic terrorist activities, arrests and court proceedings. It seems fair to say that the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, quickly took that advice to heart in its selective coverage of the saga of Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame, and that its selectivity has kept a noteworthy story very quiet.

Grasping at Straws, Ed Schultz Blames Citizens United Ruling for Trump's Popularity
By Jack Coleman | December 25, 2015 | 6:52 PM EST

As Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) gradually fades among liberals after its decade-long stint atop their stack of pathologies, a newly diagnosed condition known as Completely Unhinged over Citizens United (CUCU)  is supplanting it.

Even though BDS is unlikely to wholly depart from the liberal psyche, which appears to draw sustenance from its presence despite the obvious toll on left-wingers' health, eruptions of the new malady still occur with alarming frequency. 

NYT Celebrates Christmas With Left-Leaning Naughty-or-Nice List: BLM, Gay Marriage, Climate Change
By Clay Waters | December 25, 2015 | 5:30 PM EST

The New York Times’ Christmas Day editorial got off to a wonderful start with a tribute to the astronauts of Apollo 8, the first humans to orbit the moon. But it quickly fell back to earth, as the liberals on the editorial board took advantage of the season to interpret peace on earth and goodwill toward men as a Christmas wish list for the left wing, celebrating Black Lives Matter, gay marriage, the climate change accord, and Syrian refugees, while putting America on the naughty list.

MRC's Tim Graham Highlights Notable Quotables Worst of the Worst 2015 on Newsmax TV
By NB Staff | December 25, 2015 | 10:32 AM EST

The MRC’s Tim Graham joined Newsmax TV on Tuesday night with host Steve Malzberg to elaborate on the MRC’s Notable Quotables Worst of the Worst 2015 winners, including overall winner Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC declaring on October 25 that the term “hard worker” has racist connotations.

Year-End Awards: The ‘Harsh to the Huddled Masses’ Award
By Rich Noyes | December 25, 2015 | 10:10 AM EST

This week, NewsBusters is presenting the Media Research Center’s “Best Notable Quotables of 2015,” our annual awards for the year’s worst journalism. Today, the “Harsh to the Huddled Masses” award, for attacks on the GOP candidates for their supposed hostility to immigration. Winning the trophy: Yahoo! News anchor Katie Couric for suggesting to GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz that he lacked “empathy” because he didn’t support Barack Obama’s unilateral executive action on amnesty.

Google's Christmas-Free Doodle vs. Animated Celebration of Evolution
By Mark Finkelstein | December 25, 2015 | 9:17 AM EST

A very Merry Christmas to NewsBusters readers everywhere! Just out of curiosity, I took a look at the Google doodle for this Christmas Day.  See below: it's bland, boring and above all, void of any reference at all to the holiday itself. I decided to have a look at the ways Google observed other days with its doodles. And sure enough, exactly one month to the day before Christmas Eve, Google celebrated "the 41st anniversary of the discovery of Lucy," she being the skeleton of a hominin found in Ethiopia.  

Google's animated gif doodle shows a monkey walking on all fours, then a lumbering ape-like figure, and finally the tall, striding Lucy. Evolution, baby! Evolutionists everywhere celebrate Lucy Discovery Day by huddling around their Origin of the Species first editions and adorning their bumpers with fish symbols with feet. So, is Google worried about offending non-Christians with a true Christmas doodle? Then why not similar concern for the sensibilites of creationists with its Lucy doodle? 

New York Times Puts on Full-Court Press for NBA’s Politicized Gun Control Push
By Clay Waters | December 24, 2015 | 3:00 PM EST

On Christmas Eve the New York Times pushed the NBA’s new gun control campaign (that's NBA, not NRA), both on the front page and the front of the Sports section. The sports editors really performed a full-court press, taking a local angle with an over-the-top deck of headlines above an enormous picture of New York Knicks player Carmelo Anthony: “Trying to Drown Out The Din of Gunshots – No Stranger to Despair, Anthony Joins Other Stars in Speaking Up for a Cause.” As long as it’s a cause approved of by the liberal Times, anyway.